Nowhere Girl
by Random Artemis
Summary: AU after 'The Gift' Two years later, an older, slightly bitter Dawn reflects on what happened then, and what's happened since. D/S friendship and slightly more, hints of past S/B.


Title: Nowhere Girl

Author's Name : Random Artemis  
E-mail Address : cath_6@hotmail.com  
Disclaimer : I own nothing. You know this. I know this. Why rub it in?  
*Dedication: To anyone who loves Dawn as a strong, independant character, and to everyone who has ever given me feedback.  
*Distribution : Anywhere that wants it, but please e-mail me so I can go gloat over the sight of my own name.  
Rating: PG-13 to be on the safe side. Angst, but nothing risqué.  
Summary:  Dawn reflects. AU post-gift. Slight Dawn/Spike, hints of past S/B   
*Author's Notes : This my first Dawn-centric ficlet, so I'm really not that familiar with it. I don't read a whole lot of Dawn/Spike fic, but I do like the pairing, so if this is horribly cliché, I'm sorry. This was a random plot bunny that wouldn't leave me alone, and wouldn't shut up. Was originally the opener for a btvs/harry potter cross-over, but it seems to work better as a ficlet. In any case, I might do a few random sequels of Dawn's adventures wandering around the the world, looking for Spike. E-mail me if you think it'd be interesting!

She smokes his cigarettes, blares his music, and tugs incessantly on the lapels of his long leather duster, but instead of making her feel better, it just makes her realize more and more that he's not coming home.

            At first she thought he just wanted to get away from it all for a few days. He did that a lot. He would disappear for a few days, then come back, collapsing into her bed in the early light of the false dawn, reeking of blood and gore, or cigarettes and sex. Sometimes he would cry. Sometimes he would bury his face in her hair with his eyes closed, murmuring Buffy's name. Sometimes he would murmur hers. 

            For the most part, he would just crawl under the covers and hold her tightly against his chest, combing her hair gently away from her face with his fingertips, and watching her pretend to sleep.

            She never acknowledged his nighttime visits, keeping her eyes closed until he left her bed with a shift in the mattress and a creak of the bedsprings, but he knew she was awake. She was sure he could hear the way her heart sped up when he slipped into bed with her, but if neither of them said anything, if they just lay there in the moment, then they could pretend that they were sane, normal. Spike could pretend that everything was alright, maybe, she thought, that Buffy was lying next to him instead of herself, and Dawn could pretend that he was there because he loved her, not out of some promise twisted into a vague dependency.

            She loved him.

            Oh, it was all good and well to realize this now, but it was still too late. After Buffy's death, it had been easy to relegate her feelings for Spike into a silly schoolgirl crush.

 Actually, at the time, it was, mostly. But now…

It was different. In his own strange-charming way, he'd wormed his way into her heart, and even six months after he'd abandoned her, the memory of him still wouldn't let go.

She'd known Spike would need some time alone after their last averted apocalypse, but it still hurt that he'd left her when she'd needed him the most.

She misses the way one corner of his mouth is higher than the other when he's trying not to laugh.

She misses his hugs in the morning, she misses the way he'd make her breakfast in bed every second Friday, and the way he smells.

She misses dragging him to the mall and letting him pout as she tows him from store to store, making him carry her bags, and the way he'd half-smile at her when he thinks she isn't looking. She misses their monster movie marathons, snitching him blood from the hospital, and having him terrify every single boy she brings home, even if it's only to work on their history project. 

She even misses the way he tried to subtly buy her Buffy's old shampoo and perfume, hoping she would use it to smell like her. It was totally sick and twisted, she knew, but she misses it all the same.

She sort of resents Buffy for this, and sort of hates herself for feeling that way, but she's long gives up on trying to repress and change her emotions to suit what's 'good' and 'normal' and 'real'. Doing that leads to exploding one day and gashing deep furrows in her arms with a kitchen knife, as experience she'd rather not repeat, again.

With this slayer healing, she thinks, it probably wouldn't even scar, but she knows she can't follow that path again. 

She wonders if the calling is yet another legacy of Buffy's she's inherited, a gift neither wanted, nor deserved, like Spike. No, she'd wanted Spike, but Buffy hadn't given him to her, even in death. She knows it's crazy to resent Buffy for this. Buffy never wanted him in the first place. 

Buffy used him, and semi-trusted him, and even liked him to a point, but she never loved him. She never could love him. But I could, Dawn thinks, I do.

Buffy died before she could break Spike's heart, and leave Dawn to pick up the pieces. Dawn had planned to wait a while, then glue it back together as best she could. But then Buffy died, and Dawn knows the fact that Buffy didn't love Spike is irrelevant now. He loved her, or at least thought he did, and Dawn can never compete with a ghost.

She sighs, expelling her last breath of nicotine as she stubs out the remains of Spike's last cigarette on the ground with her toe, and feels very old.

She is very old.

She's three and seventeen and older than time all at once.

She wonders sometimes if it would just by easier if she'd stayed the key. A formless, thoughtless ball of energy. She thinks this more often since Spike left, and is not around to dissuade her. After all, balls of energy don't get abandoned. Balls of energy don't have all these feelings inside that just _hurt_. Feelings that she doesn't understand and won't go away. Ancient balls of energy also do not have to take Chemistry. 

Every once in a while she'll get a flash of memory, usually during class at school while her mind is wandering and blank, and suddenly she _remembers_. Her human mind balks at the mysteries of the universe, and try as she might, it all slips away again, leaving her lost and terribly sad. She doesn't have many friends at school, but her classmates will usually ask what she's crying, and she's forced to shrug and ramble off a lie, but she knows. It is worse to know you've forgotten paradise, than to wonder if it exists at all.

She is a Slayer now. She wonders if Buffy would be proud or horrified, and why. She didn't know how Buffy felt about Faith, but Dawn had liked her. She wished she hadn't had to witness her dying.

Apocalypse was averted yet again, but it still doesn't change the fact that Faith, Gunn, Wills, and Xander are dead. Angel had finally earned his humanity, settling quietly with Cordy, who called her with visions from time to time. Wes and Fred had gone to regroup the decimated watcher's council, which thankfully, for the most part, was leaving her alone. Giles is in England, probably still trying to drink away Buffy's loss. Anya still runs the Magic Box, but is rarely there and Tara has disappeared to God knows where, grieving for Willow.

 Now Spike's gone. He'd left the night she'd accidentally broke down his door as she knocked. The night the tingle of warning crept up both their necks as they came face to face. The night after they'd closed the hellmouth once again, and she'd been forced to kill Xander after he'd killed Willow who was trying to de-possess him of the demon who'd used his body to open the Hellmouth. He'd killed Faith, then Willow, and was swooping down for Dawn too when she reacted with her sword. The demon jumped ship when it realized it couldn't dodge and let Xander's confusion flash in his eyes the moment before she decapitated him. The night she'd found out she was the newest Slayer.

She was alone here. There wasn't really any point of finishing high school, even if she did get accepted to college she couldn't afford to go anyway. Her meager council salary barely paid for room and board in the cheap motel Faith used to stay in. There wasn't anything keeping her here.

Without Spike to help, she'd been forced to sell the house after a few months. She'd sent the photos and clothes and memories of Buffy and Joyce to Angel for safekeeping and lived out of her duffel bag.

He's not coming back. She's got nothing tying her down anymore. No house, no car, no school, no nothing, just a scattering of gravestones, a handful of dead friends, and stained memories. Nothing at all that ties her identity to this town. She never really belonged here, after all, and maybe she's too unnatural to belong anywhere, but maybe nowhere can be a good place. It makes her a little sad to think that if she leaves, it'll be as if she never existed here at all. She wonders what that would feel like, to just disappear. She unfolds the crumpled map in her back pocket and sits against a gravestone, deciding to find out.


End file.
